The popularity of mobile multi-media devices including telephones has enabled their use, along with related infrastructure, as a media for providing mobile marketing and advertising, i.e., delivering advertisements, to the users of the devices. This is important because such a concept is considered by advertisers as the next new channel to directly reach consumers since it utilizes core assets and characteristics of the mobile media, namely, it is personal in that it is directed solely to individual consumers, it is “always on” and can reach the consumers whenever they access their communications devices, it is mobile and naturally forms groups of people who communicate actively with each other. These characteristics combined with social networks-based approaches of the Internet could form a very powerful base to execute marketing strategies.
In general, mobile marketing and advertising can be divided into the following four categories: mobile marketing, mobile advertising, mobile direct marketing and mobile customer relations management (CRM). The present invention in any of its forms discussed above is applicable to all categories.
Mobile marketing is commonly considered as the systematic planning, implementing and control of a mix of business activities intended to bring together buyers and sellers for the mutually advantageous exchange or transfer of products or services where the primary point of contact with the consumer is via their mobile device.
Mobile advertising is commonly considered as the paid, public, non-personal announcement of a persuasive message by an identified sponsor as well as the non-personal presentation or promotion by a firm of its products to its existing and potential customers where such communication is delivered to a mobile multi-media device, mobile telephone or other mobile device. Examples of mobile advertising include, but are not limited to: Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) Banner ads, mobile search advertising, mobile video bumpers, and interstitial ads in or on device portals.
Mobile direct marketing is commonly considered a sales and promotion technique in which promotional materials are delivered individually to potential customers via the potential customer's mobile multi-media device, mobile telephone or other mobile device. Examples of mobile direct marketing include the sending of Short Message Service (SMS), Multimedia Message Service (MMS) or Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) push messages, Bluetooth messaging and other marketing to mobile telephones or other mobile devices.
Mobile customer relation management is commonly considered as a combination of all the foregoing in a manner that establishes a long-term, engaging relationship between the customer and the marketing or promoting company.
The introduction of mobile telephones with sufficient connectivity enabled by, for example, broadband 3rd generation, wireless local area network (WLAN) and/or broadcast connectivity, such as Digital Video Broadcasting for Handheld (DVB-H), and with color screens and processing power has enabled the realization of providing television services to the mobile telephones and other mobile devices, which are now more accurately referred to as mobile multi-media devices. Providing such television services to mobile multi-media devices is generally known as mobile television.
There are basically only a few models of mobile television currently available (which are the same as those for broadcast television). One is free television which is typically paid for by advertisers whose advertisements are interspersed with the programming. Another is a pay television model wherein a subscriber pays for watching a television program or subscribes to a service or channel for a set time period. Combinations of free television and pay television are also available.
Regardless of which model of mobile television is used, the investment for building a mobile television network is relatively high. Therefore, mobile television is currently mostly available by paid subscription, i.e., a user must pay to obtain mobile television service, although there are advertisement and government subsidized channels. Another cost consideration for offering mobile television service is that in some areas, local legislation might require the mobile television operator to offer some or all of the same networks as in normal terrestrial, cable or satellite television.
In a typical broadcast television model in which programming is paid for by advertisers whose advertisements are interspersed with the programming, an advertisement model is generated to determine the cost for the advertisements. The advertisement model relies on predictions on the target audience of the television channel on which the program is being broadcast as well as on the target audience for the specific program that is being broadcast. Several companies, such as Nielsen Research, provide a target audience prediction service and an actual audience computation service to check the accuracy of the prediction in order to improve future predictions.
Advertisers often have concerns with the results of the target audience computations because there is a possibility that viewers might change channels to change the program being viewed and/or might not be watching the television while the advertisements are being broadcast.
These concerns, and others, results in a relatively low “cost per eye ball” or CPM (cost per million) for advertisements delivered via broadcast television. On the other hand, television programs which are statistically popular have large audiences and provide good advertising and marketing opportunities for advertisers.